Mark Pincus Blog

Craig newmark on daily show today

Home sick and watching tv (in between blogging) and of course I pick the day that craig is on. I can't escape this world:)

First, the crowd loved him. Second, jon stewart made him really funny. Perfect staright man. And craig is the perfect chauncy gardner ('being there'). "I'm a customer service rep" plays well on progressive tv.

Funny how we all love to see people *not* pursue riches. Good going craig! Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

Who's your travel agent? Do you have one?

Well, I don't have one. Somehow I find myself in 2007 sitting on hold for hrs with airlines working through credits back for cancelled flts or desparately trying to book another.

in a quick poll of friends only one had an agent. I tried that agent who charged me $200 to book a roundtrip flt to newark (turns out it was two separate tix).

Now I'd consider paying that if they offered great service. 24x7 phone support? No. Web access to your itinerary when there's nobody to talk to? No. Great deals mere travelers can't access? No.

So what gives? How come nobody has built a sleek, new travel agency? There would be so many oppts to automate functions and outsouce both night time calls (india) and expert requests (villas in tuscany). How about leveraging stay at home moms?

My hope is that many of you will tell me this exists (which happens with many of my reqs). I suspect it doesn't though.

Questions....

* do you have a travel agency?

* do you like them?

* how do they charge?

* if u don't, do u value ur time?
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"the lives of others" best foreign film

this film, which won last night, is one of the best films i've ever seen. it's a true story of the lives of three people during the 1980's in east germany. romantic, suspence thriller that i understand was so accurately depicted it's almost a documentary. amazing performances too.

google earth as nav and ad display?

i havent followed closely but i'm wondering if anyone knows whether google plans to make google earth an interface for finding location specfic information. obviously, letting you surf through real estate listings would be super cool. i would love to virtually fly down the coast of california browsing beach front property for sale or fly through colorado and utah and look for cheap land and ranches. cant imagine it would be that hard to integrated with an mls database and then offer a side option to click on with listings.

anyone know how *open* the platform is? can third parties integrate services?

google earth as nav and ad display?

i havent followed closely but i'm wondering if anyone knows whether google plans to make google earth an interface for finding location specfic information. obviously, letting you surf through real estate listings would be super cool. i would love to virtually fly down the coast of california browsing beach front property for sale or fly through colorado and utah and look for cheap land and ranches. cant imagine it would be that hard to integrated with an mls database and then offer a side option to click on with listings.

anyone know how *open* the platform is? can third parties integrate services?

will goog ever fight spam?

adam lasnik from google posts this below (flattered a googler reads my blog). while he's marketing google's ever present plethora of useful services, i will point out to him (them) that google should consider offering a universal spam blocking service. seems in line with other services like popup blocking and way more useful to most of us that a new free version of ms office. also in line with do no evil but goes further - stop others' evil.

Google Apps (http://google.com/a) offers the option to access your gmail with a Blackberry directly (no need for POP downloading), and -- as others have noted -- our spam filtering is pretty decent :)

jupiter media up big!

i do want to point out that this blog named jupiter media a major buy less than two weeks ago i believe at under $7 per share. pls let me know if anyone followed my advice. course you dont owe me anything. this is all free:) i'm happy to say that this is the biggest position in my 'white knuckle fund'.

Jupitermedia Corp. jumped in premarket electronic trading Wednesday after a media report said the Darien, Conn. company was being targeted for a takeover.

Citing unnamed "sources with knowledge of the negotiations," the New York Post said the Getty Images Inc. was in talks to buy Jupitermedia, which sells digital images and other content to information technology and creative professionals and Web designers.

The sources said the price could exceed $11 per share, including Jupitermedia's debt.

Jupitermedia shares gained $2.35, or 29.2 percent, to $10.37 in active premarket electronic trading. The stock ended Tuesday trading at $8.02 on the Nasdaq Stock Market, and has traded between $5.45 and $18.81 over the last 52 weeks.

Getty Images shares closed at $52.59 on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday and were not trading in the premarket session.

Spam - the punishment should fit the crime

If anyone has seen the final scene from 'last king of scotland' (which film I highly recommend), you will know what I'd really like to do to the people taking over my inbox every day.
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Spam is clogging my blackberry

I have to say that spam is starting to really bother me again (after ignoring it for yrs). This is mainly because it is filling up my blackberry. It slows everything down because I'm always downloading another msg. I get so much at night that I often miss msgs coming in the middle. Delete on the blackberry takes about 10 seconds per msg so its no longer even worth trying.

I have to say I'm at this point I would either a) change carriers (using t mobile), b) change devices (blackberry clearly doesn't stop spam) or c) pay for a third party service that reduced these msgs, OR d) contribute to a non profit that funded people to hunt down and expose spammers.

7 yrs ago I invested in sunil paul's company, brightmail, who's original mission was to stop net spam. Sunil has always been way ahead of his time. His original idea was to charge consumers directly. I think we've finally reached the tipping point for that business.

Anyone know any great solutions?
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Who are these people?

Who volunteers to get bumped on president's day weekend for a $300 voucher when there are no confirmed flts till tuesday?

Who comes back to hertz airport center a day later to ask how their sattelite radio works?
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